TOPIC: "Lesser" certifications... any point?

Reading every thing you wrote so far, all fingers and eyes are pointing to one direction that says: you wana be a professional network engineer. Specially when you said your aim is at CCNP. Just get passed CCNA and you will find your self infront of a wealth of Cisco information that you will feel you'll need at least 2 years to comprehend. Pass CCNP, and CCIE will consume your limits if you ever think about going there. I'm not scarring you here, Infact, I mean the opposite. I just wana tell you that Cisco alone is so interesting and can take half a life time and is one of most prestigious and well respected certs there.

The issue that you appear you want to handle is that you currently want to get a better job (Or did I miss understand). More smaller certs will definitely not harm but it has to take time, and as you said you're already experienced in IT. What I know (at least in my country) companies value experience 3 times the certs. A candidate with say 4 years experience in a certain field would usually have a better chance of winning a job than a fresher with a cert in the same field. But again, I repeat this is in my place, so not sure it will apply to you. Still if you ask me, I'd say go for CCNA, it can be done in a relatively short period.

Regarding CCENT, As you probably know there are two tracks for CCNA. Either taking the single 640-802 CCNA exam, or taking the two exams 640-822 ICND1 and 640-816 ICND2. If you choose to take the 2 exams track, I believe you will automatically get CCENT once you pass the ICND1 exam. Check here:

Solo, you are right about the CCENT it is awarded after you take the ICND1 test.

From my experience the A+ and Net+ is one of many stepping stone certs. If you was going to down the route as a PC service repair tech, start with the A+ then step up to certs from IBM, HP, Dell, and Apple. Net+ is really the same thing. Cisco even suggest that taking the Net+ helps in preparing for the CCNA.

Here is one important thing to think about for any CompTIA certs. They don’t expire!!!

I disagree with the statement about the A+ being overrated though. It seems like nowadays people are skipping it because they think it doesnt carry weight. I found that I really lost my hardware troubleshooting skills messing around because I've been doing more of the networking stuff. I'm so glad to have to my A+ partner at my work or my a** would spending hella time researching resolutions to the hardware problems that come up.. lol

A+ isnt a waste of time. It just depends on which part of IT you want to specialize in.

I dont even know what's on the NET+ but I heard the Cisco cert trainings cover the same material and more.